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Reason: There was no industrial capacity. There were many plans for expansion of heavy weaponry after Nohoman, but simple lack of capacity to carry those out meant there was no improvement.

The emphasis had always been both air and naval forces. Understandable, considering Japan's geography and they were indeed, at the onset of the war, the best in the world.

Likewise, Germany's naval capacity was miniscule. Aside from several pocket-battleships and the more infamous Bismarck, Germany had only 1 carrier prototype that was never completed. Again understandable, since like Japan, Germany stuck to what they were good at.

Nonetheless, in the case of Japan... the utter lack of improvement upon their existing small-arms is... in many ways, inexcusable. Their basic infantry rifles were underpowered and outfitted with too friggin' many unnecessary accessories. I mean, whats up with aircraft sight for rifles? Bayonets for machineguns?

Other than those shortcomings, the rifles are more or less serviceable. I shot many variants, the late war ones you can ditch because their craftsmanship is shoddy, but pre-1943 productions tend to be quite sturdy.

Consider most of the weapons they were using were fine in China, they needed the expanded resources to continue that action. I guess they figured they could get a bunch of quick victories, get a peace settlement with the Americans and British and then move back to taking China.

Their armor at the start of the war was about as good (or maybe even better) that te Germans (Type 89 and 97 verses Panzer I and II, with early Panzer IIIs, IVs and Panzer 38(t)s?). Though I seriously doubt the Japanese had anywhere never the numbers the Germans had at the start of the war. They certainly could not keep up in production or technology compared to the Germans.

Japanese manufacturing needed to go to aircraft and ship construction in the 40s as that is were most of the war was taking place. If you can keep them form being able to land troops or support said troops, you have basically won. Even if your infantry equipment is not up to standards.

The Japanese also ran into the problem of trying to control something as big as most of eastern China with a comparatively tiny army. Even if the Communists and Nationalists were only barely not killing each other most of the time.

Its interesting to note that while the Japanese air force and the navy were considered world class, its army was pretty much stuck in the 1920s...

- Tak

Because their enemies at the start of war don't have strong armies either. China, Indochina France, South East Asia (Siam quickly become puppet of Japan to avoid being invaded) v.v... have no T-34, M4, Tiger or 203mm B4 v.v... equal tanks, field guns for land army, thus Japan don't need developed stronger armoury for land army. Other reason most of their industry capacity is thrown to air and naval force to against US Naval Force, only few ICs is left for land army, just like German spend most IC for air and land force while their Kriegmarine don't has super battleship ships like Yamato and they has few CV project but only 1 is launched, their infamous Bismarck and Tripitz are unable against massive UK Navy. German submarine are pretty weak to enagage enemy fleet with strong anti-submarine warfare, thus most of time, German is take out from the sea, Rommel lost in Africa because his sea rout supply is harassed, blocked by Allied fleet while German Kriegmarine can't help much.

The upgrade Type 97s were designed to take on the Soviet tanks encountered in 1939...before the KVs and T-34 showed up in 1941. These tanks could also usually engage the usual American M3 Stuarts encounted early in the war. The few M3 Lees encountered were probably too much for them in SouthEast Asia and China while the M4 Shermans encountered in the islands was more than a match for anything the Japanese had until 1944 and 1945. The Type 1 Ho-Ni tank destroyer was probably the only armored unit they had in the field that could take out a Sherman at anything close to combat ranges. Everything else was either "not happening" or "at extremely close range".

Since an open top tank destroyer would be "unsafe" I doubt we've see any in Girls und Panzers. The Type 3 medium tank would do it, but it's already down for the count due to 88mm poisoning.

1941, Soviet is still focus on Western front with German, so no T-34, KV arrive in Eastern front. After German surrender, Soviet begin attack Japanese and Kwangtung Army is defeated badly due they never against such strong army before while Soviet army with full experience after against German and far powerful vehicles and personel warfare equipment than Japanese land army.

Kwangtung Army, despite it has good manpower number, 1.320.000 men, but only one armored division (too few for an army), 32 infantry divisions, 6 independent brigades, and up to 25 security battalions. More over, many of these soldiers are semi-conscripts, recruits with poor equipment when engage Soviet army, because most of their best soldiers were send to Pacific front.

The point was more that the Japanese did not encounter any KVs or T-34's the last time they engaged the Soviets in 1939. It was that experiance that lead to some of their tank devolopment.

They did not get another knock on their tank hulls until 1942 against mostly American tanks. Most of the British tanks seem to have not seen service in the Pacific, or at least not until later in the war. The M3 Stuart, M3 Lees, and M4 Shermans gave the Japanese something to ponder were before they were just worried about BT-5s, BT-7s, and T-26 light tanks.

World War II hardware was dictated by doctrine. Japan had no real doctrine for tanks besides "go over where the enemy is and maybe do something", so they never dedicated all that much resources to their tank arm. And really, outside of the Burma campaign, better tanks wouldn't have helped Japan at all during the war. As is, the only time there were any significant clashes between Japanese and Allied tanks were found in overwhelming defeats inflicted by the Red Army.

__________________

The victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won...

Because their enemies at the start of war don't have strong armies either. China, Indochina France, South East Asia (Siam quickly become puppet of Japan to avoid being invaded) v.v... have no T-34, M4, Tiger or 203mm B4 v.v... equal tanks, field guns for land army, thus Japan don't need developed stronger armoury for land army.

I think we went over this, but my main focus was what happened after the Japanese army encountered American ground forces. Besides the lack of armor, which one can argue they were unnecessary in jungle warfare, the IJA never even bothered improving upon existing equipment. No semi-autos, no submachine guns, no general-purpose machineguns, all of these essentials the IJA never bothered with. That is, despite the fact that their Chinese opponents were already employing these weapons and proved to be very effective in a number of situations.

As I mentioned earlier, one has to wonder about the psyche of Japanese military developers. Aircraft sight for rifles, bayonets for machine guns, and oh this is golden, pistols that chambered 8mm...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Panzerklein

Other reason most of their industry capacity is thrown to air and naval force to against US Naval Force

And even their aircraft development remained static. Nothing ever replaced the A6M, not the Shinden, Raiden, Shoki... etc. Whereas the FW-190 was mass produced and proved to be just as good as any Allied propellers.

World War II hardware was dictated by doctrine. Japan had no real doctrine for tanks besides "go over where the enemy is and maybe do something", so they never dedicated all that much resources to their tank arm. And really, outside of the Burma campaign, better tanks wouldn't have helped Japan at all during the war. As is, the only time there were any significant clashes between Japanese and Allied tanks were found in overwhelming defeats inflicted by the Red Army.

It's the other way around: Industrial capacity dictated doctrine. Even during the Meiji era, lack of resources/capacity dictated that the IJA rely on spirit and manpower to cover the deficiencies.

I think we went over this, but my main focus was what happened after the Japanese army encountered American ground forces. Besides the lack of armor, which one can argue they were unnecessary in jungle warfare, the IJA never even bothered improving upon existing equipment. No semi-autos, no submachine guns, no general-purpose machineguns, all of these essentials the IJA never bothered with. That is, despite the fact that their Chinese opponents were already employing these weapons and proved to be very effective in a number of situations.

As I mentioned earlier, one has to wonder about the psyche of Japanese military developers. Aircraft sight for rifles, bayonets for machine guns, and oh this is golden, pistols that chambered 8mm...

- Tak

Japanese has Type 100 Submachinegun, Type 4 semi-automatic Rifle (but only 250 guns were producted in 1945 before the war end, is based on M1 Garand). General-purpose machinegun, you mean light machinegun? Japanese also has light machinegun for many-role, some use magazine like Type 99, some use drum like Type 92. If not, in WW2, only German has General-purpose belt-fed machinegun, the rest light machinegun use drum and magazine just like Japan.

The Type 100 saw a production of less than 30,000, a mere fraction compared to just about everyone else and certainly made little to no impact to their war efforts. The same criticism could be made about the Japanese Garand. Light machine guns used by Japan required multiple personnel operators, unlike their German or American counterparts, which could be operated by just two individuals or on occasion, one.

The most popular machine-gun for the US (and the Allies) was the .50 cal, which was a general-purpose, belt-fed weapon. Even the Soviets had a good number of general purpose automatics whereas their Japanese counterpart had often been criticized as being clumsy and bulky.

I wonder why people keep forgetting the damn simple fact I wrote before: Lack of industrial capacity.

Because you cannot always use the lack of industrial capacity as an excuse to compensate for the lack of strategic foresight. The Chinese, with their less than adequate industrial capacity, was actually manufacturing and procuring licensed small arms of all types to its armies whereas the Japanese insisted on mass producing existing, but inadequate weapons than to adapt to the constant changes on the battlefield. This also had to do with the lack of competition within the Japanese arms industry, who were some of the earliest versions of the profit-seeking military industrial complex.

This is not a fault of industrial capacity, this is the fault of military planners. Japanese naval commanders remarked on numerous occasions that the A6M Zero proved to be so successful in the initial stages of the war that they never considered a replacement until it was too late.

Unfortunately, my dear Tak, the IJA did have the strategic foresight (as I have read a ton of old military records on plans for better guns and more guns for the troops), but the industrial capacity never was up to it. We're looking at a country that was barely keeping up with the demand for the inadequate weapons, you think that producing more resource/skill intensive weapons while stopping the production of the old weapons was possible at all? Heck, China Proper had more de facto industrial capacity than all of Japan at the time.